


Symbology

by femmenerd



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, Post-Series, Queer Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-05
Updated: 2007-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-18 07:00:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1419076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmenerd/pseuds/femmenerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rated R for sexual themes and obsession with linguistic structures. </p><p>  <i>Angel opens himself up, and lets Buffy come inside.</i></p><p>Beta by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stultiloquentia/pseuds/Stultiloquentia">stultiloquentia.</a> The last time she beta-ed for me it was an S/B 'ship manifesto masquerading as fic. Perhaps this is that for B/A. I'm not sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Symbology

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kita (thekita)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekita/gifts).



> Originally posted on LJ [[here].](http://femmenerd.livejournal.com/170946.html)

She shows up on his doorstep and says, “I’m baked now.” There are years of other lovers, other joys, struggles and solitude writ across her face in crow’s feet and laugh lines, subtle but there. He hasn’t seen his own image in over two hundred and fifty years, but Angel’s fairly certain he still looks the same. He’s not.

He smiles down at her slowly, blinking in recognition, not entirely surprise. “Still with _that_ metaphor?” She rolls her eyes, steps forward.

Angel opens the door, and lets Buffy come inside.

*****

Buffy can be chaotic. She invades his kitchen with weird girl food and oddities–little yogurts mixed with fruit and barley, mini marshmallows, more kinds of crackers than could possibly be necessary–the bathroom with bottles and creams and sundry toiletries. Occasionally she doesn’t put the weapons away clean after a fight.

In her riotous approach to life, in the day-to-day practice of it, sometimes she irritates him. But in the wake of dirty dishes and arguments about things more blessedly trivial than duty, fate, or the end of the world, Buffy becomes three-dimensional. It makes him love her more.

And his bottled blood and hair gel didn’t need that much room anyway.

*****

They've both become accustomed to issuing orders, so he has to be very careful to pronounce the question marks at the ends of his sentences when they're patrolling just the two of them, minus the “team,” only the duo. Stakes and fists and egos to be tempered and shared.

It's not just about tagging requests with endearments; it's about listening. It's not easy.

*****

He still doesn’t tell her about the one lost day when his skin was hot to her touch; Angel keeps that memory for himself.

In the still quiet of their bedroom though, she warms him with small hands, strong pussy, and sleepy, open-mouthed kisses that are slower than before even though technically they have less time left. It's enough.

*****

Angel believes in the power of symbols. It’s hard not to when some of them can literally singe his skin, open him up raw.

Buffy’s always been a kind of personal totem for him–even more so when distant, when he couldn’t touch her. It all has to mean something: heroes are more than individuals. And his love for her is more than just a thirst for inspiration.

Always when they fuck, it’s a push and pull between signifier and signified, her words and his moans; sometimes it’s a guttural conversation between the part of her that’s demon and the part of him that’s still all man. Angel remembers centuries of sex that spoke in less eloquent terms, when fucking and killing were near synonyms. With her, he needs to _give_ in a way that’s entirely new.

Angel suits Buffy up with trembling hands, his flesh-cock pulsing hard as he looks at her latex one, anticipating. He fists himself and lies back spread wide, feeling meaty, vulnerable.

“I trust you,” he says, and looks into her eyes, challenging.

Angel opens himself up, and lets Buffy come inside.

*****

“I’m gonna grow old and die someday,” Buffy says in the sweaty dark. As if Angel didn’t already know.

He covers both of her hands, knit together, in one of his, thinking of prophecies and the strength she gives him, and answers, “Maybe someday I will too.”

Angel still hopes.


End file.
